NU145 Unit 5 Toddler Observation Paper Example

Building Beside, Not With: An Observation Paper on a Composite Two-and-a-Half-Year-Old in a Public Library's Toddler Corner, With a Running Record in Plain Verbs and Each Entry Sorted by Developmental Domain

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

NU145: Psychology Across the Lifespan

Unit 5 Observation Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The child and setting are composite and written as a model; a real observation requires the permissions and rules the student's course sets, and those records stay with the student.

Setting and Method

The observation took place in the toddler corner of a public library on a [weekday] morning from 10:00 to 10:45. The writer sat on a bench about three meters away, did not interact with the children and recorded at five-minute intervals. The child, called C. here, is identified only by approximate age, [30] months, and sex. Any real observation, its permissions and its notes rest with the student who carries it out. A running record writes down what the child does and says in the order it happens, using observable verbs, and saves interpretation for later (Bentzen, 2009).

Running Record

10:00 C. sits on the mat. Picks up a red block. Stacks four blocks. Looks at a boy, about the same age, stacking blocks one arm's length away. 10:05 Knocks his stack down. Laughs. Says "Boom!" Restacks five blocks. 10:10 Picks up a toy truck. Pushes it along the mat. Says "Truck go." Drives it to the other boy's stack. Stops. Drives it back. 10:15 Walks to the bookshelf. Climbs onto a low step and down again. Returns to the mat. 10:20 Holds out a block toward the other boy. Pulls it back. Adds it to his own stack. 10:25 Other boy takes a block from C.'s pile. C. says "Mine!" Takes it back. Other boy turns away. 10:30 Builds a row of six blocks. Pushes the truck along the row. Says "Big road. My road." 10:35 Looks at the other boy's tower for about ten seconds. Builds a tower of his own next to it. 10:40 Caregiver says it is time to go. C. says "No, more." Stacks two more blocks. Takes caregiver's hand. 10:45 Walks out, holding hand, carrying the truck until caregiver takes it back to the shelf.

Interpretation by Domain

Physical. C. stacks five to six blocks, walks steadily, climbs a low step and comes down without help. These fit what most children do by 30 months; the CDC checklists, revised in 2022, list skills such as taking some clothes off and jumping off the ground with both feet near this age, and set each milestone at an age most children have reached (Zubler et al., 2022). Stacking and steady climbing are consistent with typical motor development. Cognitive. Lining blocks into a "road" for the truck is simple symbolic play: one object stands for another. Knocking down a stack and rebuilding it to laugh again shows cause-and-effect play still in use. Language. C. uses one- and two-word phrases and one three-word phrase, "Big road. My road." The 2022 checklists expect a child of about 30 months to say about 50 words and to combine two or more words including an action word, such as "Truck go" (Zubler et al., 2022). C.'s speech fits that description. Social. C. watches the other boy, builds beside him, copies his tower and once almost offers a block, but the two never play together toward a shared goal. Parten's classic categories call this parallel play: children playing near each other with similar materials but not together (Parten, 1932). His "Mine!" when a block is taken is ordinary for this age.

Ten minutes of entries showed the same pattern six times: watch, come close, build alongside, never build together.

Inference Labeled as Inference

Some statements go beyond what was seen. That C. "almost offered" a block at 10:20 is an inference from a single held-out hand; he may simply have been looking at it. That parallel play is typical for him is an inference from forty-five minutes on one morning; his play with familiar children may be more cooperative.

What the Observer May Have Changed

An adult sitting nearby, writing, may have made C. or his caregiver more careful. The library setting, with unfamiliar children, may also favor parallel over cooperative play. Repeating the observation in a familiar setting, such as child care, would test whether the pattern holds.

Conclusion

In this observation, C.'s motor, language and social behavior fit what most children show near two and a half, with parallel play as the clearest pattern. One forty-five-minute record can describe a morning; it cannot assess a child. Its value is in showing how careful recording makes later interpretation honest.

Appendix: Raw Notes as Taken

C. ~2.5 y M. 10:00 sits, red block, stack 4, looks at boy. 10:05 knock, laughs, "boom," restack 5. 10:10 truck, "truck go," to boy's stack, back. 10:15 shelf, step up/down. 10:20 holds block out, pulls back. 10:25 boy takes block, "mine," takes back. 10:30 row 6, truck, "big road my road." 10:35 looks at tower ~10 s, builds own. 10:40 "no more," 2 blocks, hand. 10:45 out w/ truck, returned.

References

Bentzen, W. R. (2009). Seeing young children: A guide to observing and recording behavior (6th ed.). Delmar Cengage Learning.

Parten, M. B. (1932). Social participation among pre-school children. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 27(3), 243-269. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0074524

Zubler, J. M., Wiggins, L. D., Macias, M. M., Whitaker, T. M., Shaw, J. S., Squires, J. K., Pajek, J. A., Wolf, R. B., Slaughter, K. S., Broughton, A. S., Gerndt, K. L., Mlodoch, B. J., & Lipkin, P. H. (2022). Evidence-informed milestones for developmental surveillance tools. Pediatrics, 149(3), Article e2021052138. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2021-052138